Our trip to Mykonos last week seems like light years away, not to mention 2 seasons. We left Mykonos on Saturday evening just gone where it was 23 degrees and after a stop over in Athens for the night where it was still warm, we then arrived back in Munich at 10:30am on Sunday with a temperature of 2 degrees with snow covering the ground and trees. Apparently it had dumped here on Saturday, thank God I missed it. I mentioned on my Facebook page that I “HATE” snow but that’s not entirely true. I think snow is really pretty and I love the way it looks and how it means Christmas is almost here but with snow comes freezing temperatures which I do HATE. I hate the cold so much that I can go from happy & chirpy inside the house to a real miserable bitch as soon as I step out the door and that mood doesn’t pick up until I’m back in the warmth..for good…not just for a little coffee or hot chocolate stop to warm up, nup still miserable then but when I am back home and get my ugg boots on, I’m a new person. Hi I’m Ali and I suffer from seasonal depression, real bad!

Anyway so enough of that whilst I drift back to my week of warmth and recall our activities for you. We flew to Mykonos two Saturdays ago and when we arrived it was soooooo windy as in i’m lucky i’m carrying around my winter fat layer or I may have been blown over, but it was warmish so it wasn’t all bad. I was worried we were going to nose dive into the Med due to the huge amounts of turbulence which I normally love but on this little prop plane it was a little scary.

We got to our hotel just before 7pm so there wasn’t much of the day left really. We checked in and had been upgraded 3 times…bonus!…to a deluxe room. That makes us sound really tight…we hadn’t booked the cheapest room but actually a pretty good one to start with, it’s just that they have about 9 levels of rooms so yes, we were upgraded 3 times. The hotel was lovely and had fantastic views and was very clean. I must commend the Belvedere Hotel on their breakfast too – probably the best hotel breakfast I’ve ever been presented with. Of course I didn’t indulge in anything more than fruit salad and yoghurt every morning but if I wanted to, or dared to, I could have is what I’m trying to say!

That first night we just headed down into town to grab some dinner at a place that our hotel concierge recommended. It had your typical authentic Miconian meals and everything was delicious. Mark and I both love Greek food so were in heaven. We grabbed some dips, and meatballs and I carb loaded something chronic…which came in handy for the lack of exercise I participated in. After dinner we then moved to the area called Little Venice to a bar which was also recommended to us. After having some not great wine at dinner; a cocktail at Caprice bar (which was foul); and boogying out of the bar around 11pm and doing some little dances in the lanes back to the hotel as my head hit the pillow everything started spinning…never a good sign and up I was giving Mark’s Oktoberfest performance a run for his money but I am such a light weight that it doesn’t take much.

Just one minor detail about Mykonos at the end of October….it’s dead! I mean…almost every night we were the only people in a restaurant, maybe the second lot and the bar that we went to…yep only people in there as well until about 10:30pm when there were maybe 15 people but it is a ghost town. It’s really a shame because the weather isn’t terrible (it rained a couple of the days but was mostly decent, sunny and warm enough) but it’s just that their season ends pretty much at the end of September so most of the restaurants, bars and shops just shut down and it looks derelict “You can derelict my balls!”. There were a few cruise ships coming in and out packed with tourists who would wonder around for a few hours and create a bit of ambience but mostly just nobody around. We had so many recommendations from friends of places to go or restaurants to try but they were all closed unfortunately.

So relax we did and plenty of it as there wasn’t much else to do. We got a scooter out for 5 of the days we were there and rode to a couple of beaches for some baking sessions on three of the days, and then checked out the island and rode around it all trying to scope out where we could get a villa for the next time we go during the right season when we will see if we can rope a group of friends into coming with us so we can party it up properly. A couple of days we stayed at the hotel and lay on the sun lounges and did some walks into town and checked out some different beaches that Mykonos had to offer. We could see how much potential it would have if everything was open and full of people and music going and cocktails flowing so we tried to imagine the scene but all we heard was the crashing of small waves on the shore, which in itself was absolute bliss don’t get me wrong.

We needed a holiday where we didn’t feel like we were missing out on anything if we were sleeping in or lying down in the sun or just sitting on our laptops watching shows and that’s what we got. We got so relaxed that on 2 nights we couldn’t be bothered walking the 5 minutes into town for dinner and instead ordered in Thai take away. I don’t think we would have felt so well rested by the end of it if it had been pumping, so a blessing in disguise and at least we’ve done a reconnaissance for when we got back, which we definitely will.

On our last night we had been told about a tavern on Paranga beach that was having it’s season closing party and there would be live music and lots of locals there celebrating the end of Summer. We went over there a little earlier in the day for a lie in the sun and a swim before the festivities got started and it really livened up. We sat down around 3pm and had a long lunch-turned-dinner from this great tavern and watched the old birds and blokes get up and have a dance. It was so great to be there and be part of it even though we felt a little like intruders, which didn’t last long after the numerous carafes of wine when we didn’t feel much of anything, and to see everyone in their element and the young and old all interacting and having a good time. I think this event made our trip because before then we had felt a little let down by the fact there was no one around and nothing on so we left feeling complete and as though we’d at least had a glimpse of what gets going when the time is right.

Back to the land of the polar bears…this week is a short one with it being a public holiday on Thursday meaning everyone is taking off Friday as well so we are going to head down to Vienna, Austria with a couple of friends and have a long weekend investigating another new city and part of our European playground. This will probably be the last one for the year before we head back to Aus late December because 1. It’s too damn cold and unpleasant to sightsee and 2. The Christmas markets open up here on November 24th and liven the place up bringing some real Christmas spirit along with the mulled wine.

So…that’s where we are at for now. I will be back next week to give you the run down on Vienna which I’ve heard so many great things about so really looking forward to it.